Ready for Summer!

Saturdays are always a big "To Do" list day for the Rowell household. We have been spending a lot of time working in the yard. Let me tell you how hard it is to keep our yard looking alive. For the past month, we have been working dilligently to get our flower beds filled with plants and mulch. And for the past month we have been killing ourselves trying to keep them alive. We couldn't figure out why we would water and water them and they would slowly die. Not only were our plants dying but our grass was starting to die as well. So, we checked and rechecked the sprinkler heads and tested the sprinkler system and everything seemed. fine. Then one night we went outside for something and we realized the sprinklers weren't on when they were supposed to be. We weren't getting any pressure from the city water to water our plants and lawn. No wonder why our plants and lawn were dying!

I called Syracuse City to come and fix my problem. In Syracuse, we get secondary water to water our lawns. So when the employees of Syracuse City came out and tested our sprinkling system, they agreed something wasn't right. So they dug up our water filter and discovered that the cause of our problem......FRESH WATER CLAMS were clogging our pipes. EWWWW Gross!!!!! We have clams in our pipes, that is gross and wrong. But, after they killed the clams and crushed their shells we finally had pressure to water our yard. Hallejuhiah!

(This is what was in our pipes...YUCK!)

After 2 years, here is our house with landscaping! YEAH!

Yesterday we got a lot of stuff completed (yard work, working on the sprinklers, cleaning the house) including getting our patio ready for summer. We got a Gazebo so we can have lunch and dinner outside when it isn't 100 + degrees. I really like it and I think we will have a lot of fun relaxing under it.

Here is a picture of it.

This is what Dylan spends his time doing when we are working in the yard...

The Rowell Household is officially ready for Summer!

Sometimes being a brother is even better than being a superhero. ~Marc Brown

Lucas and Dylan have a love hate relationship. They fight all the time, but if the other person isn't around they don't know what to do with themselves. They could be yelling and screaming at each other one minute and the next minute they are laughing and playing with each other. I can truly say they are best friends. They play (or fight) with each other all day long and at night they can't be apart either.

Luke and Dylan share a room. One time, I separated them because they wouldn't go to sleep. I put Luke downstairs to sleep in the guess room and Dylan stayed up in their room. In the morning, I went to wake up Dylan and he wasn't in his room. I started to freak out. I looked all up stairs and he wasn't anywhere. I ran downstairs to check on Luke and their was Dylan peacefully sleeping next to Luke. He obviously couldn't sleep with out his brother so he snuck downstairs and crawled into bed with Luke.

The other night, I went into their room to check up on them to see if they FINALLY went to sleep and this is what I saw....

"My brother is a friend God gave me; my friend is my brother my heart chose for me."

Gingerbread houses in Spring????

The Rowell household gets bored quite often. So, we decided that we wanted to build Gingerbread houses. We got all of the goodies from the store and started building. Dylan and Luke's faces were smiling the whole time. Our sugar addict (Dylan) would pop as much candy as he could into his mouth when he thought I wasn't looking. They had fun piling and piling as much candy and frosting as they could on that little gingerbread house. It would fall down every so often, because it couldn't bear the weight. But, in the end, it stood and it looked great!

We Love Our Daddy

We love our Daddy! I am finally getting to write an entry on Father's Day. I think Jordan had a really good day. He woke up and got a couple of gifts from his family. The boys gave him a gift they made from school. It was a big Hershey bar (mind you Jordan doesn't like chocolate) with a nice poem and a picture on it. Then he had a wonderful surprise. He got an IPOD. Yes, it is true. The Rowell family has finally joined the 21st century and got an IPOD. We have been wanting to get one for a while now and I finally decided to spend the money on my wonderful husband and give it to him for Father's Day. He was really excited. He has spent the last 2 weeks downloading music on it. We finally got to the 2,000 song mark and we still have room left for 18,000 more. Who knows $20,000 songs anyways?

You should see the look on Jordan's face when he plays with his new favorite toy. It is almost as good as when I bought him his first set of tools. We were newlyweds and we decided to go and look at the tool section at Sears. Jordan saw a set that he REALLY wanted. I figured it was a good investment, since I always have a "Honey To-Do List" that needs to be checked-off. So, we bought him a set and he wanted to sit in the back of the car on the way home from Sears and look and touch his new tools. I couldn't believe it. I think he was more excited to get tools than he was to get a new bride a couple of monthes previous.

Anyways, he loves his new IPOD. Here is a picture of what it looks like......

The rest of Father's Day went well. We went to church and he was excited to see what the ward would give the dads on Father's Day. The mothers on Mother's Day got a flower to plant in their flower beds. So, Jordan was wondering what special treat they had in store for him. To his dismay, all he got from the ward that day was the opportunity to teach Elders Quorum.

After church, we went up to Odgen Canyon. We had Uncle Tyler join us. It really is beautiful up there and we had a good time getting out of the house. We saw the water and a nice water fall. Jordan was holding Mason in front of the waterfall when Mason gave him his father day present...Some vomit with cheese crackers in it. "Happy Father's Day Daddy!"

We love Jordan very much. He is a really good man that wants more than anything to make his family happy. He has so many wonderful qualities..He is funny, a hard worker, loving, talented and is always thinking about others before himself. We are all blessed to have him in our lives. Happy Father's Day Jordan!

Here are some pictures of the ride...

WE ARE EMPLOYED!!!!

Jordan finally got a job! He is a property adjuster for Farmers Insurance. He really understands the industry and has a real knack for the business. He started over a month ago and last week he got home from a 2 week training in Mesa, Arizona. He learned a lot, and had a good time. In another week he will go off to Los Angeles for another 2 weeks. I can honestly say that Jordan is a different person since he got this new job. He is really happy and feels good about himself and what he is doing. I am proud of him and happy that he finally found his thing.

Here is a picture of Jordan and the boys at the airport after 2 long weeks without their Daddy.

It is Hard Being "4"

Dylan has a hard time being "4". Luke always gets to do stuff first. He had a really hard time when Luke got to play soccer and he didn't. Then he was upset when Luke got to ride a big boy bike before he did. He didn't understand why he couldn't play "T"ball or basketball.

So when Luke lost his tooth......it was a sad day in the Rowell household for Dylan. He wanted to be "6" so he could lose his teeth and have the tooth fairy visit him. We put Luke's tooth in a plastic bag and wrote " Luke's first lost tooth". Dylan needed a bag too. So he found some little dinosaurs and we wrote "Dylan's Dinos". He still can't understand why he can't be the same age as Luke but as we all know "Life is hard and then you die!"

Tooth Fairy Meet Lucas

Luke lost his first tooth! So here is the story.....Luke was in his room and was biting a shirt ( don't ask me why my kids show animal like behaviors) and he pulled really hard on the shirt and it made his tooth loose. He came down to my office and was freaking out. He was screaming and crying telling me that his tooth is loose and then in the same breath he would yell at me saying that his tooth is gone. After a lot of coaxing and trying to make him calm down, he finally realized what was happening and was alright with the idea that he had a loose tooth.

After a week of him wiggling his tooth, it finally came to the point that it was really loose. Being the very impatient mom that I am, I wanted that tooth out now. Even as a kid, when I got a loose tooth I worked on that tooth until it came out. I wanted the MONEY. Luke came into the bathroom when I was bathing Mason one night and he wanted me to feel how loose his tooth was. After I felt it, I had to get it out. No more wait until the tooth comes out itself. I started coaching Luke on ways to get the tooth out. I had him wiggle hard, get dental floss, and start working on the root of the tooth. Luke was excited and scared at the same time. This was all new to him so he wasn't sure what to expect. I kept telling him that it would be O.K. but he was a little hesistant to pull the tooth out.

Thirty minutes later, the tooth was ready. Here is a clip of the big event.

Who said Mormon women aren't abused!

In January, I was racing with with Luke in our basement ( trying to make up for all the bad mom things I have done) and tripped over him and hit head first into the molding of a door (by the way, molding doesn't have any give!!). All I can remember is knowing that I was going to fall and seeing the door and then next thing I feel is a huge amount of pain in my head and leg. I hit so hard that I completely crack the molding and put a huge hole in the wall. I had the BIGGEST bump on my forehead. I looked like Frankenstein. I messed up my knee and had multiple bumps on my chin. I was a complete mess. I didn't want to go to the ER but after much convincing I finally went. ( You should have seen the horror on Jordan's face when he saw the orange sized bump on my head. In the nicest way possible, he told me that I was going to be O.K. but he really feels that I needed to go to the ER because my injury didn't look to good.) After $3,000 dollars of tests and head scans the doctors concluded that I was fine (even though he said mine was one of the biggest hematomas he has seen). His prognosis was that I just had a huge hematoma on my head ( I wish I could charge thousands of dollars for stating the obvious!). After weeks of bruising and pain, I finally recovered. I still have a scar on my forehead and my knee.


Here is a picture of my face after a couple of days.

WARNING

This is a warning to all viewers that I am not in any way shape or form creative or an artsy person. I don't scrapbook, create cute cards or do anything that resembles creativity. But, my guilt has gotten the better of me and I realized that I don't write in a journal or have any type of recording of our family, so I am attempting this BLOG. So here I go! Wish me luck